The End of Time

by P. W. Catanese

  Oates crept up beside the door and nodded at Umber. Umber grabbed the doorknob. “Hap and Sophie—stand back in case they fire on us.” Umber yanked the door open enough to peer out into the grand hall and stuck his face in the gap.

  CHAPTER

  28

  He withdrew his head just as quickly and looked at the others with his jaw hanging loose. Then he swung the door open wide.

  “He’s gone,” Umber said. Through the threshold, Hap could see the bodies of the armed men scattered across the floor with their rifles by their sides. But Doane was not where he should have been, outside the door.

  Umber stepped into the grand hall and peered right and left. He coughed and covered his mouth with his hand. The odor of the potion still hung in the air, a sweet and flowery scent that made Hap feel the faintest touch of drowsiness.

  “How could he have gotten away?” Hap asked.

  “I don’t think he could have,” Umber said. “Unless someone . . .” He froze, and then gestured frantically for them to get back to safety in the corridor. There were footfalls on the steps, coming up from below. Before Umber could swing the door shut, they saw Dodd’s familiar face appear as he raced upstairs.

  “Dodd!” cried Umber, waving to him. “Quick—over here!”

  Dodd smiled and raised a hand. “No need to hide, Lord Umber. The Aerie is a stronghold once more.” He looked down at the dozen senseless men on the floor. “We’ll have to do something about these rascals before they wake up, though.”

  “Kill ’em!” cried a small voice from ankle-high. Thimble had stepped out from a crack in the wall. The tiny fellow had a knife brandished in one hand, and he whipped it from side to side.

  “That’s not the kind of folk we are,” Umber said, dropping into a squat.

  “Not the kind of folk we are,” Thimble repeated, mimicking the words as if Umber were a whiny brat. “This will be your undoing, Umber. I heard the whole exchange with this Jonathan of yours. He won’t show you mercy. Any of these men will kill you on his orders. Why give them the chance? Don’t worry, I’ll do it for you. Their necks are down here where I want them. . . . A little nick is all it takes.”

  “Thimble!” cried Umber, in a voice stern enough to stop the tiny man in his tracks. “If you slit a single neck I’ll bring an army of cats into the Aerie within the hour. Now get back to your hole in the wall and leave this to us.”

  Thimble grumbled, shook a fist at Umber, and slipped into the shadowy crevice between two stones.

  Umber shook his head as he watched Thimble disappear. When he turned to speak to Dodd, his mouth opened into a horrified circle. “Dodd!” he cried.

  Dodd had picked up a rifle to inspect it and was holding it straight and staring curiously down its length, as he’d watched the invaders do. He looked up, shocked by the tone of Umber’s voice.

  “Dodd, put it down,” Umber bellowed, pointing at the floor. “Stop looking at it! Stop thinking about it!” Dodd bent to lay the rifle on the floor and stood straight again, stung by Umber’s words.

  Umber wiped a hand across his eyes and collected his wits. “Sorry, Dodd . . . I didn’t mean to be harsh. Listen, tell me what happened just now. Where is the leader of these brutes?”

  Dodd cleared his throat and managed a smile. “Welkin, Barkin, and I were downstairs, being watched by a gang of those invaders. Then we heard those banging sounds upstairs—what a commotion! Some of the men rushed up to the grand hall, and they came back, staggering from that sleep potion, dragging that Supremacy or whatever they call him behind them. They carried him outside, and I have to say, they’re not the brightest bunch, because all but two of them forget about us. We caught them by surprise and grabbed those death-sticks away, and they ran out after the others. Then we slammed the door after them and barred it.”

  Umber thumped Dodd on the shoulder. “Wonderful. And where did they all go?”

  Dodd pointed with his thumb. “In the gatehouse and on the causeway. Trying to revive their leader.”

  “He won’t be asleep much longer,” Umber said. “Let’s get busy. Oates, lug these bodies down to the gatehouse. Dodd, tie them up so they won’t cause trouble.” Umber turned to Hap and Sophie and breathed deep before speaking. “You two. Pick up those rifles. I’ll get the ones from downstairs. Don’t touch the metal loop near the middle, and do not point the hollow end at yourselves or the others. Stack them in the corner and cover them with a tablecloth from the kitchen. Understood?”

  Sophie nodded. “Understood,” said Hap.

  The lift clattered into motion, engaged from above. Balfour appeared, riding down on one of the platforms. Umber gave him an enormous grin and clapped his hands loudly together, while the old man blushed and waved away the applause.

  “This one’s dead,” Oates announced in a booming voice. He was standing over the man who’d been struck in the leg by a bullet that bounced off the wall. Hap saw a glistening pool of blood beneath his sprawled form.

  Umber’s applause ended. He walked over to the body and darted an angry glare at the rifle at his feet. “How easily they kill.” He shook his head. “Bring him downstairs with the others, Oates. Quickly. I don’t know how much longer they’ll sleep.”

  “I could just snap all the necks,” Oates said, twisting an imaginary head with his hands.

  “What is it with you people!” Umber cried, shaking his arms. “Just bring them downstairs. Gently!” he added, as Oates tossed an unconscious man over his shoulder like a dishrag.

  Hap was draping a cloth over the stack of rifles when the voice drifted through the window. “Brian! We need to talk!”

  Balfour was closest, and he peered out quickly, pulling his head back an instant later in case bullets flew. “It’s your friend, the homicidal madman,” he told Umber.

  Umber stood beside the window with his back to the wall. He shouted without showing his face. “Jonathan, this has to stop.”

  “I want the computer. And I mean to have it.” The tone of Doane’s voice had changed. Before, Hap had the impression that he was wildly entertained by his violent expedition. All that remained was a cold, venomous fury.

  “Even if I had it, I wouldn’t give it to you,” Umber replied. “Look what you’ve done with the knowledge you have! No, Jonathan. I’d sooner smash it on the rocks. Hurl it into the sea.”

  A silence followed, oddly peaceful, with only the sound of gulls. Then Doane spoke again. “Listen, Brian. I’m returning to my ship now. My men will guard this causeway, and they’ll signal me when you produce the object I’m looking for. If you don’t, I will turn every gun on the Vanquisher upon this city of yours. And wherever I see your hand at work, I will destroy it. Your sailing ships. Your libraries and schools. Your hospital. Every hint of modern architecture. You would ask me to sink my ship, and undo everything I’ve accomplished? Then that will be your fate, Brian. I suggest you watch from your rooftop. It will be spectacular—like nothing this world has seen before. Do you hear me? You have one hour to give me what I desire. And when you see our flare, you have one minute.”

  Umber tilted his head back, and it thumped on the stone. He closed his eyes and called out in a voice thick with passion. “Remember who you were, Jonathan. Before you came here. Your mind has been twisted, your ambitions deformed. But I can help you. Send your men away and come inside alone.”

  There was no answer. Hap heard the carriage door slam. Reins snapped, hooves clattered, wheels squeaked. The sound faded. Umber risked a quick glance out the window. He blew air out of the corner of his mouth. “He’s gone. There are about a dozen men staying behind, on the causeway.” Umber clasped his hands atop his head and sighed. “Gather the others, please. I want to talk to all of you.”

  They stood in a half circle: Oates, Balfour, Sophie, Hap, Welkin, Barkin, and Dodd. Even Smudge had been cajoled from the archives to join the group, but he stood away from the rest, mumbling and twisting his filthy beard. Umber faced them with his hands clasped behind his back. �
�My friends. Do you trust me?”

  “Of course,” said Balfour.

  “I do,” said Hap.

  Umber gave Oates a particular stare. “I trust you,” Oates said.

  Those words made Umber smile. “That means plenty, coming from you. But listen, everyone. You’ve just heard some things that must have been confusing, and I need to explain. Um . . . how do I say this?” Umber looked down, and shook his head, and chuckled quietly, as if he could not believe that he was about to share his secrets. “Doane and I come from . . . the same place. And I have something that Doane wants, an object that doesn’t belong in this land. It’s a machine called a computer. A wonderful machine, filled with information on everything you can imagine. Everything I’ve done here—the architecture, the engineering, the medicines, the music—came from that machine. I’ve tried to use that power to make this a better world. But Doane would use it to build greater horrors than that warship in the harbor. So I can’t give it to him, no matter what. Are you with me so far?”

  Hap looked at the others, and they were all looking at Umber with the same mix of surprise and admiration. Dodd broke the silence. “I can’t claim to understand all that. But as we said, we trust you.”

  Umber’s mouth twisted and he covered his eyes for a moment with his hand. “Thank you. There is a nightmare before us now. I don’t see how we can stop it. But . . . I think we should get ready for what’s coming. The final attack will be on the Aerie. They will either destroy it completely or blow it open and storm inside to search for the computer.”

  “What do you want us to do?” asked Barkin.

  “Pack up what you can carry and bring it down to the caverns. We’ll be safe from the great guns down there. And if necessary . . .” Umber grimaced and rubbed his jaw. “We might have to escape through the underworld.”

  “The caverns?” screeched Smudge.

  Balfour blanched. “Beyond the gate?”

  “But the troll came from back there,” Sophie said under her breath.

  “The troll is the least of it,” Smudge howled. “Those caves are filled with monsters—the horrible things that served the sorceress when she ruled here!”

  “But there may also be a way out,” Umber said. “It’s our last resort.”

  “Could we sneak out that side door and hide in Petraportus?” Balfour asked. “We might be able to swim to safety.”

  Umber shook his head. “We’d be seen. The gunmen would pick us off, or the artillery would blow us to pieces. No, the caverns may be the only chance. Everybody, get the stuff you need. Balfour, grab food and water from the kitchen for all of us. Meet back here as soon as you can.”

  Hap stepped onto the terrace. He inhaled and smelled the blossoms of the tree of many fruits and the other remarkable flora of Umber’s garden. The door to Umber’s rooftop tower was open, and Hap saw a flickering light through the window. He went inside and climbed the stairs and found Umber in his study, staring at an assortment of books and objects on his desk.

  Umber glanced up, biting his lip. “Hap, you shouldn’t be walking around alone. If the Executioner showed up . . .”

  Hap shrugged. “We have so many problems, I almost forgot about him.”

  Umber snorted out a rueful laugh and looked down again at the clutter. “I’ve been collecting stuff for a decade. How do I to decide what to leave behind?”

  That decision hadn’t been so difficult for Hap. His existence could be measured in months, not years, and his possessions were few. “I can carry some,” he said. The elatia was in its pot on his desk. “We should definitely take that,” he said, pointing.

  Umber didn’t seem to hear him. He gestured toward the set of books that he kept on a shelf in his study: The Books of Umber, which chronicled his discoveries of all things monstrous and magical. “No room for those of course. And I can’t take these.” He waved his hand over the box of charms and talismans that had once belonged to Turiana. “If we bring them into the caverns and Turiana is still there, I’ll be handing them right to her. Better to leave them in the Aerie, where they’ll be buried in the rubble.”

  Hap went to Umber’s window and stared down at the enormous ship in the harbor. “Will he really destroy the city? Because you won’t give him the computer?”

  Umber’s head slumped into his hands. There were dark crescents under his eyes, and he looked a decade older, with all his youthful energy gone. He seemed dangerously close to slipping into one of his deadly melancholies. “Happenstance.

  I . . . I always thought I was doing the right thing. But

  now . . . everyone would be better off if I’d never come at all. How did it come to this?”

  Hap’s thoughts whirled in his head. He leaned heavily against the windowsill, looking at the great city, the wonder of its age, about to be devastated. “It wasn’t you. Meddlers did this. Willy Nilly brought you here. Willy’s nemesis brought your friend to the Far Continent. They set you against each other, like game pieces.”

  “But now both those Meddlers are dead. And Jonathan is going to win,” Umber muttered. “Any minute now, in fact.”

  At the pier below, Hap saw the royal carriage come to a stop. The Supremacy stepped out and walked to the boat that would ferry him back to the Vanquisher. He turned his head and stared up at the Aerie, and Hap felt their gazes meet, even across that great distance.

  Hap felt pressure build in his veins. He had the urge to scream out the window and curse at Doane. More than ever he wanted the power to see the filaments, to leap across time and distance. I could fix this, he thought. A Meddler could do it. So why can’t I?

  He remembered what Willy had told him, about why his powers eluded him. Because you care, Willy said. Meddlers weren’t supposed to care about other people. They were selfish, capricious beings who were concerned only with their fateful games. “How am I supposed to stop caring?” Hap asked aloud.

  “What’s that?” Umber said, roused from his own dark thoughts.

  Hap pushed himself away from the wall and grabbed the hair on both sides of his head. A thought had seized him; a memory from his short but eventful life. “You did something to me once,” he said.

  Umber’s brow wrinkled. “I did?”

  Hap rushed across the room and leaned on the desk, staring Umber in the eye. “Yes. When you tried to help me remember my life before this one!”

  Umber’s head tilted. “That’s right. I . . . I hypnotized you. But it didn’t go well.”

  Hap remembered too well how it felt when Umber pried into his mind, taking him back. When Hap had finally approached the memory of his own death, he’d been driven into a blind panic. “You have to do it again. But you won’t make me remember this time.”

  Umber’s head wobbled. “I won’t?”

  Hap thumped the desk with his fist. “When you hypnotized me, you told me to feel things, and I felt them. You told me to feel sleepy. And I did. You told me to see things in my mind, and I did. You told me my arm was weightless, and I felt it!”

  “But . . . but what do you want me to make you feel now?”

  “Nothing,” Hap cried. “You have to tell me not to care!”

  CHAPTER

  29

  They sat on the same bench on the terrace, under the tree of many fruits.

  “I don’t know if there’s time,” Umber said. His voice quavered, and his gaze drifted toward the harbor, watching for the flare that the ship would send up. Time is running out, that flare would say. Take a seat, Lord Umber, and watch all your dreams laid low.

  “Then you should start now,” Hap said, with a harsh note in his voice that he had never produced before. It made Umber’s head snap back, but he nodded.

  “Right,” Umber said. “But wait. Take this.” He reached into a pocket and drew out the strange, clear envelope that held the picture of the woman whom Willy wanted Hap to save. “I wrote down some information on her. Who she was, where to find her.”

  Hap shoved it into a pocket. “Willy sai
d a Meddler has to keep his promises.”

  “Did he?” Umber said. He shifted in his seat and wiped his palms on his thighs. “So then . . . I guess we’ll begin. Close your eyes, Happenstance, and take a deep breath. The deepest you’ve ever taken. Hold it for a moment, and let it out slowly.”

  Hap did as he was asked. Umber went on, his voice falling to a soft drone. He told Hap to take another deep breath, and said it over and over again, ten times altogether. The process was ingrained in Hap’s mind, and following the commands was as easy as tracing steps in the dust. Umber told him to relax his muscles, one by one. He told him to imagine stairs and to feel more at ease with every step down. He told him to picture a single candle shining like a star in a vast dark room, and imagine that nothing else mattered. When Umber told him his arm was without weight, the limb drifted up with a feathery lightness. Hap felt aloft and detached, and the world faded away.

  Even when something in the distance rose high into the air with a screeching whistle and dimly exploded, it did not jar Hap from his trance. Nor did Umber’s groan of dismay and muttered words: “The flare.”

  A voice drifted up from far below. Someone was shouting on the causeway. Hap recognized the voice of the spy, the whistler, Spakeman. “Last chance, Lord Umber. Give the Supremacy what he wants!”

  Hap was not shaken then, or when footsteps approached and Sophie cried out, “Lord Umber—Balfour says those guns are turning this way, not at the city. You have to run!”

  With his eyes still shut, Hap reached out and found Umber’s wrist. “Keep going,” Hap whispered.

  Sophie called out again, but Umber hushed her. “Get downstairs, Sophie.” Hap sensed Umber leaning close. When he spoke again, the voice was like an echo in Hap’s mind.

  Happenstance. Your feelings run deep. You care about those whom you’ve come to know. That was what Willy Nilly did not expect when he turned a boy into a Meddler. And now you must let go of your feelings. Picture them as lengths of cord, binding each of us to your heart. Sever those cords, Happenstance. One by one. Cut the cord that ties you to Sophie. In his mind Hap saw himself surrounded by the people he cared for. The string that linked him to Sophie snapped, slashed by his will, and Sophie drifted from sight. As the cords are severed, your feelings go with them. Now Balfour. And Oates. Nima. Thimble. Fay and Sable. One by one Hap’s circle of friends diminished.